Camera Tech: Why You Should Use Cleaning Mode and Not Bulb or just Mirror Up

Note - I use Nikon references here, but the same info will hold true for all the digital manufacturers that have a shutter release (mirror up) cleaning mode.

Caveat: Don't clean your sensor yourself. Ok, I said the party line.
(everybody cleans their CCD sensor themselves, but manufacturers won't necessarily warranty a camera you manually dorked around with, so my blog is not an endorsement to do this).

I see many Nikon photographers whine about cleaning their CCD sensors. They hate wanting to drill down into the camera menus to find the "Lock Mirror Up for Cleaning" mode entry under the setup menu. They say (and I saw a forum entry where somebody said this: "screw Nikon, I just use bulb".

I have to admit in the interest of full disclosure that I used to use bulb or mirror-up or (yes, my favorite) lock a wired remote shutter switch into the released (open) position (like I was taking a long exposure & manually timing it, kind of like bulb with a remote lock) when cleaning my sensor.

But my eyes were opened last year by a Nikon tech (Ron Taniwaki). Since I repeatedly (even today) saw an entry from somebody in some forum where they were whining about the lock for cleaning mode, I thought I'd share the rationality for correctly using Lock Mirror Up For Cleaning mode since apparently this isn't knowledge that's out on the net. I even just looked for cleaning and mirror-up discussions in various forums and didn't see the "correct" argument. So:

Why you want to use your camera's cleaning mode or lock-the-mirror-up-for-cleaning is this:

Other modes like bulb, long exposure settings, or simple "mirror-up" assume you are taking a photo, not cleaning the CCD, so the camera applies an electrical current to the CCD to allow it to gather light and convert an image to a file (through the rest of the camera logic) when the mirror (or shutter) closes.

The problem with trying to clean a charged CCD while any trace current is applied to it is that there's a static energy that forms on the surface of the CCD that attracts tiny particles like dust, hair, etc, to it. You can get the idea of how this works by simply holding your arm up next to your computer screen you're reading this on and seeing how the hairs on your arm stand up to the screen. You can even feel it. And it's creepy. (Or cool. Depending on how weird you are, you weirdo!) (Hey, I do it all the time!)

BUT - if you use a camera's cleaning mode to lock up the mirror, current is being applied to the mirror ONLY to hold the mirror open, but NOT the CCD. So... you're not attracting the same stuff to the CCD that you're trying to clean off at the same time.

Since you can damage a heck of alot of camera components cleaning your CCD (like the the CCD, the mirror, and more), this is why your camera (assuming it's smart enough) should not let you go into cleaning mode if there's no AC adapter connected OR if the battery is below a 60% charge. This is bad mojo you can get into if the mirror drops while you're still goofing around with your swap or tacky-pad or brush in there at the same time, so your camera - which is probably smarter than you are (no offense) checks it's power source first before letting you come in to mess with it. (Ps, now you get an idea of how brushes work: if you use the correct kind of brush and "charge it" correctly, it's carrying a static attraction that sucks junk off the CCD. If the CCD is also carrying a charge, you're defeating the purpose and probably attracting junk off the brush back onto the CCD, duh!)

Since we're smarter than the camera, we get frustrated having to mess with the stupid thing when we want to clean the CCD and the correct setup or tools menu item is grayed out (because the camera doesn't sense enough power available)- so we bypass this by using "bulb" or straight mirror-up mode, etc.

But you are potentially causing problems (or at the very least increasing your cleaning time: "wait, i just cleaned it and it's got junk on it again!") since the CCD is a dust magnet when power is applied to it.

Hopefully this sheds some light on why you should use the cleaning mode when you have to clean the CCD.

Happy spot removal. (cleaning is a whole 'nother blog waiting to happen, but there are -alot- of good cleaning references on the net, one of the best being here: http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=Tutorials).

Had a fun senior shoot last week where we used part of the studio that I have not used in the past for shooting, and that was my presentation room where I normally hold client meetings and do...presentations (duh)! It's surrounded (practically) with windows with mini-blinds, and has some nice furnishings, so it makes it a fun place to experiment with light in. Ashlee's one of my new senior models and helping me out with representing us at some of the high schools, so she was game to come in a mess around for a little while.

The light from different times of the day is really interesting, but since it faces southwest, the stronger light in the afternoon - especially that sweet golden light you get near sunset - is just too much fun!

This chair Ashlee is sitting in is from my front reception area (waiting room). I had intentionally bought several styles of chairs when setting up the studio so that we could have some variety and fun things to shoot with for different purposes... I tend to like old looking chairs, especially ones with a slight Victorian style to them (like I know anything about furniture styles!)... but they're great, especially for senior portraits. I love getting - especially a guy, who'd otherwise look a little, I dunno, awkward in jeans, not formal, and put them in a formal chair. The contrast is subtle and makes a little statement that I think comes through in the photo.

At any rate... I'll be doing more shoots in this room I think. I may have to start calling it the Solarium or something. It's giving me all kinds of ideas about shooting in and around my building in other settings. I'm so fired up!

I wanted to title this photo I uploaded to Flickr "Blah!" but I didn't think anybody but my wife would get it. "Blah!" is what we think babies say pretty much universally "out of the box" until they learn their local lingo.

This photo I took during a recent family photo shoot reminds me of a true story. One day I had a big presentation in front of a couple hundred people - real "hard cases". They were all heavy duty tech guys, this was back when I was still an engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) many years ago. And yes, I was nervous about getting totally "beat up" about the presentation. But, before I could drive an hour north to Nashua to do the presentation, I had to take my still very young son to day care. My wife did the pick-up in the afternoon, I did the drop-off. You know how it goes.

My son was still in diapers at the time. So I started to change him prior to getting over to his day-care, and right in the middle of the change he shot a fountain of, well, you know, "wee-wee" up into the air so high it almost hit the ceiling. But it did hit me. Quite a bit. And all you can do in a situation like this is to laugh... finish the diaper change, change your shirt, etc.

So I'm taking him out to the car & he's all gurgly & being cute & I was lifting him up over my head like he was flying for a minute before putting him in the car seat... when I looked up, and he was smiling real big & drooled. Right in my mouth. OOooo, yech. But again... laugh...

So at day-care I'm taking him out of the car seat, lift him up, this time he barfs, all over my shoulder. Not alot, but you know, enough.

So when I started my presentation - and I was first-up that morning since it was a couple-hour long presentation I was doing, I was quiet, stood there looking at everybody, all these hot-dogs and "heavies" as we used to call them, and very deadpan I said: "Look, so far this morning I've already been pee'ed on, drooled in, and barfed on... absolutely nothing you say or do to me here is going to be worse than that!" which of course broke the ice & got everybody laughing pretty well & I proceeded on with the show.

Thats the beauty of photos... they remind you of important (and sometimes: simple) things in your life!

When The Lights Go Out

We had a fun day today in the studio... I was setting up for a little mini-fashion shoot when the power went out. Holding the "light" button on my watch showed me I still had about half an hour before the young lady I was shooting was to arrive. After a few seconds, I decided to move a small set outside the studio into the parking lot and shoot her out there.

So of course, I've, like, got a bunch of stands in the lobby waiting for me to carry outside, and was just lowering one of the large softboxes when.. taa-daa- the power came back on. So I thought... well, a photo jedi like me would just go ahead and shoot in the parking lot anyway just to say I did it, but then my brain kicked back in and I re-set up in the studio.

Naturally, about half way through the shoot, the lights went out again while Brittney was changing clothes in the dressing room, so I switched lenses to my 70-200 (a skill I long ago mastered in the dark) and when she came out (I could see her silhouetted against the eerie light of the emergency lights in the hallway) I said... hey: lets go outside (this being the most original thing I could think of to say). We had had a pretty weird sky - high clouds - so I thought I'd grab a light & battery back, but looking out the front door I saw the sun had come back out, so I grabbed a mid-size reflector and we all trooped outside (her, her sister, and her mom).

We took shots in a few locations just outside my building - I made her sister work the reflector for me! - and we saved the day (although I already had some cute shots from the studio shooting we did before the lights went out).

Anyway... it was just one of those mornings where we had to be flexible!

Model Shoot In Nelson, Nevada

While in Las Vegas recently I had found out about a small independent group of photographers putting together a model shoot. The time and place got worked out, there were about 8 slots or so (enough for a van load), & we had booked 4 models to take part. Two cancelled. That was a bit of a bummer. But two (Brooks and "Z") gave us some pretty good variety. See my flickr set here.

The weather held real well, rain was supposed to come in (and did later, rained for 2 days). Gave us some nice clouds in the background in some of the shots. I got some great shots of Brooks & Z & did some funky photoshop treatments on a couple of them.

viva las vegas.

In February I went to the Wedding and Portrait Photographer International conference in Las Vegas.


I love going to Vegas. I had been there seems like a million times up to this point when I ran NetGrafx Internet Web Services, my web development and internet consulting company some years back. I love people-watching and now that I've been doing photography for a while I think it has honed my people-watching jones to a fine art... but I get the most fun out of looking at the interesting clothing people wear... alot of fashion "dos" and "don'ts".

I'm not Gods gift to fashion, by any sense. But I think I have developed a better sense of what looks right on camera, and this extends to when I'm not looking through a view finder. I saw the usual really-hot-blondes with micro-minis and high heels... I wasn't even out of the airport when I saw two or three girls that could have legitimately modeled. And maybe they were models. But it didn't take long checking into the MGM to see my share of other fun to watch people - like the cougar in the lobby wearing a total kath & kim collision of tight clothes, high heels, frosted hair, too much makeup and too much tan. And too much exposure... and not in a good way.

And it's not just the women, of course. I saw a few guys that were perfect looking, and quite a few that had a way to go (probably the category I was in for somebody else people watching). I try not to pretend too much at these events, and there were plenty of others "like me" who seemed just great natural people that would have been fun to just hang with.

I met alot of a good people. Went to a "cocktail" party one night sponsored by Nikon featuring the band Blues Traveler which plays kind of a party mix of funky zydeco I've never been able to put my finger on. But pre-gig at the reception I had a great time visiting with a couple from my old stomping ground in Ocean City Maryland... they own and run Atlantic Portrait Studio (if I'm not butchering the name of it too much) in North Ocean City. As we were talking family history (I'm from Maryland) - turns out we may have been distantly (with emphasis on the word "distant") related!! The odds were probably: not. But there were alot of similarities with last names up the family tree, family history and homes and neighborhoods in Baltimore, etc etc. I won't dwell on it further here, but it was a cool little reminder of how much you have in common with fellow man when you stop and take the time to get to know them.


Ah well.

Oh, this trip to LV was the first time I didn't step out of the hotel/casino once the whole 7 days I was there. They say the average visitor to LV walks 8 miles a day, a fact I painfully learned the hard way early on in my trips to LV. When you think you'll just walk up the strip to that next casino you always wanted to see... you realize sometime later: dang, my feet hurt! We got to see tigers, pirates, volcanos, romans, roller-coasters, whatever... but dang... I'm tired!! So: learn to take a cab or the train or whatever. Don't try to walk everywhere.

So this time, I knew that I had to pace myself and not go mental with the "going out". The MGM - where WPPI was held - is big enough. The business center is in the back next to what used to be an amusement park the MGM tried for a while which I think is long gone now. But the walk from the hotel/casino to the business conference center is by itself maybe, what, half-a-mile-but-seems-like-three. (maybe it was 3 miles!!!) (nah, not really). So I stayed "in" the hotel the whole time. Still seems weird to me, but I barely noticed it. Sessions I attended started at 8:00 am and I was ending up the night sometimes after 10:30 or 11:00 in terms of WPPI scheduled events... so I was whacked! Then there were scads of vendor parties in the middle of the night for the real hip and trendy, only a few of which I went to (surprised they let me in!), and most of them were insanely lame (outside of the Nikon/Blues Traveler thing which was open-bar and surprisingly "cool". Alot of the Nikon names were there, although I only saw Joe McNally, I know a few other hot shots were there). Here's a shot of Chandler Kinchla of Blues Traveler I took at the show...

So anyway, Vegas is, was, and will be. It's not for everybody, but I'm always surprised by the people that wear the "I-will-never-go-to-Las-Vegas" badge like it's some kind of pride point. Geez, there's so much fun stuff to do there even without the gambling part - why wouldn't you go?!? You don't like... fun? I never went there - even when working through the night stuffing handout materials like I used to do when I ran trade show booths at COMDEX - when I didn't have a good time. And I'm waaaay conservative when it comes to partying and "going out". But I always enjoy it there. Even took the family there a few years ago, met up with friends, cruised around to the Grand Canyon, Moab, back to Vegas... we had *a blast*. Went to the big tournament show in the Excaliber... had a great time.

Anyway, thats enough prattle about Vegas. For now anyway!